You Pick BestYouPickBest

What is the best animal on a coin or banknote?

By YPB Team

Money is the most-handled design in any country, and a lot of it has an animal on it. Some choices are obvious, some are strange.

  1. Bald Eagle — ranked #11
    Bald Eagle
    On the reverse of the American quarter, the dollar and most gold bullion the mint has struck.
  2. Common Loon — ranked #22
    Common Loon
    On the Canadian one-dollar coin, which is universally called the loonie because of it.
  3. North American Beaver — ranked #33
    North American Beaver
    On the Canadian nickel since 1937, and a national symbol since the fur trade.
  4. Red Kangaroo — ranked #44
    Red Kangaroo
    On the Australian one-dollar coin, five of them at once.
  5. Kiwi — ranked #55
    Kiwi
    On the New Zealand dollar coin, and the reason New Zealanders are called Kiwis.
  6. Giant Panda — ranked #66
    Giant Panda
    On China's Panda bullion coins, redesigned every year since 1982.
  7. American Bison — ranked #77
    American Bison
    On the Buffalo nickel of 1913 to 1938, one of the most admired American coin designs.
  8. Platypus — ranked #88
    Platypus
    On the Australian twenty-cent piece, an animal European scientists first assumed was a hoax.
  9. Springbok — ranked #99
    Springbok
    On South Africa's Krugerrand, the bullion coin that dominated the gold market.
  10. Lion — ranked #1010
    Lion
    On the reverse of Bulgaria's lev coins and the arms of half of Europe's currencies before the euro.
  11. Short-beaked Echidna — ranked #1111
    Short-beaked Echidna
    On the Australian five-cent coin, one of only two egg-laying mammals alive.
  12. Emu — ranked #1212
    Emu
    On the Australian fifty-cent piece, alongside the kangaroo on the arms.
  13. Golden Eagle — ranked #1313
    Golden Eagle
    On every denomination of the Mexican peso, holding a snake on a cactus.
  14. Andean Condor — ranked #1414
    Andean Condor
    On Chilean and Colombian coinage, and the largest flying bird by combined weight and span.
  15. Arabian Oryx — ranked #1515
    Arabian Oryx
    On the Jordanian dinar and coins across the Gulf, after being brought back from extinction in the wild.

Comments 1

Canada named its dollar after the loon printed on it. The American gold coin was called, simply, an eagle: https://youpick.best/articles/bald-eagle-ranked-many-ways

YP
ypb-team
Aug 27